Officer held for ‘false report’ in IMA Group case

On November 16, 2018, the revenue department had issued a seizure notice.

A Bengaluru Police SIT probing the multi-crore IMA Group Ponzi scheme fraud on Monday arrested Bengaluru Urban district deputy commissioner B M Vijay Shankar for allegedly issuing a false report about the group in 2018, which allowed the company to dodge the seizure of its assets.

Shankar has been accused of taking a bribe of Rs 1.5 crore from the IMA Group to provide a favourable report at a time when investor complaints against the company were on the rise and revenue officials had initiated proceedings to seize the company’s assets. On November 16, 2018, the revenue department had issued a seizure notice.

Last week, the SIT arrested the Bangalore North region Assistant Commissioner (Revenue) L C Nagaraj and an accountant identified as Manjunath for allegedly receiving a bribe of Rs 4.5 crore from the IMA Group to drop the asset seizure proceedings.

Shankar “hid facts and gave a report favouring IMA and the main accused”, the SIT said.